I understand, you see I have a background in philosophy myself and I was just exploring with you to see where you are. You answered my question and I appreciate that. As one with some understanding in philosophy I have learned that nailing jello to the wall does not work.

Hugh

12-26-2012, 08:52 PM

thermophysics

Ah, good stuff, Hugh, western philosophy is a vast landscape. My recent lecturer in Ethics has a PhD is Ethics and Computational Linguistics and while our course covered the likes of Aristotle, Hume, Kant and Mill she admitted, after, that in her years of study she had never read any of them. I was astounded - she had a PhD in Ethics yet the landscape is so vast she had never read any of the names we in the outside world consider to be Huge.

Anyway, we cover the notion of truth in the likes of Epistemology and Metaphysics. Generally the approach is that Epistemology is mostly about Justification and Metaphysics is mostly about Truth. Does time exist, true or false, does it go past at 1 second per second, true or false and if true or false how do I justify my belief that it is true or false?

Philosophy skills include:

The ability to cut through waffle
The ability to spot errors in reasoning
The ability to make a point with clarity and precision
The ability to analyse complex issues and arguments
The ability to think independently and creatively (to “think out of the box”)
The ability to build a strong, rigorous case.

Well geer, I can see you are not bright enough to recognize my argumentation technique. Watch and learn geer, watch and learn.

Ah, deception is one of your argumentation tools?

12-27-2012, 10:14 AM

acmanko

Here is an absolute truth

Look at my avatar

12-27-2012, 10:41 AM

thermophysics

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hugh B

Thermo,

As one with some understanding in philosophy I have learned that nailing jello to the wall does not work.

Hugh

I like that saying. Is it your own? It is quite fitting.

It sounds a little like Wittgenstein's Family Resemblance Principle. Here are some of my notes drafted a few years back for a past assignment for a philosophy of language course...

The Impossibility of Necessary and Sufficient Conditions

Nothing found out there in the world with syntheticity is known yet to be definable in necessary and jointly sufficient conditions.

Defining anything in necessary and jointly sufficient terms necessitates the notion that we will never fail to recognise cases nor erroneously ascribe cases.

However, so far, all known such attempts tested have turned out to either have cases where:

1) Terms turned out to be not necessary…

...there is eventually, sooner or later, always an object or event which we classify as an instance, following the rules, but which doesn’t have the proposed feature and this shows that the originally imagined condition(s) were not necessary.

2)The terms turned out to be not sufficient…

...there is eventually, sooner or later, always an object or event which does have the proposed feature but which we don’t classify as an instance and this would show that the original condition(s) were not sufficient.

This is where Wittgenstein’s family Resemblance Principle comes in. Take four member of a family, A, B, C and D. The first overlapping pair shares appearances to do with their eyes (A&B). The second overlapping pair share nose features (B&C). The third overlapping pair share chin features (C&D) and the last overlapping pair share ear features. But between A and C there are no resemblances as with A and D etc. So the conditions for a person to be a member of the family come from an open list – a list that is never complete. So we say that there are no “necessary” conditions but instead only an open list of "sufficient" conditions. This is the principle of “multiply realisability”. The same applies to games. Write down a list of all the games humans play. You will find no one thing that is common to all those games and only games (Humans don’t only play games and so this is not a uniquely defining feature of games). And yet we are still able to recognise when something is a game.

But then we find times when the features from the list are instantiated but still we would not like to consider the instance one that should fall under the definition. So, for example, a person might be an athlete in full athletic kit and sprinting down the track with others sprinting behind him in the same direction. We might say these are sufficient conditions for there to be a race on the go. But it could be that the people following are carrying guns and they wish to rob the athlete of his shoes. What has happened here is that there are now additional conditions in play that negate, or work against, the idea that this is a race.

We say, because this sort of negation can happen at any time, that the list of sufficient conditions is always defeasible. Like a legal contract – all the conditions in the contract could be met except that some other conditions outside of the contract have come about such that the Judge agrees the contract should now be annulled.

So when we define anything like a pen, a desk, or justice or a race or even "The Scientific Method" etc we have the notion of a definition being given in sufficient terms only (no necessary terms), the sufficient terms are taken from an open (limitless) list of terms, but even if there are sufficient terms occurring or obtaining at any one time there is always the possibility of the occurrence of coinciding negating conditions and this possibility means we must consider the collection of satisfactorily sufficient terms always still defeasible - always open to defeat by the coexistence of some other negating condition.

Since there are no known exceptions to the above observed principle it cannot be said of law, for instance, that it is black and white, because it could only be so if it was an arbitrary ontological construct divorcing itself from the way the world is actually found to go on observation. If something like the law wished to be black and white then it would in fact be no more related to and guiding of the real world out there than is a game of tennis.

12-27-2012, 10:48 AM

printer2

Quote:

Originally Posted by thermophysics

I like that saying. Is it your own? It is quite fitting.

It sounds a little like Wittgenstein's Family Resemblance Principle. Here are some of my notes drafted a few years back for a past assignment for a philosophy of language course...

The Impossibility of Necessary and Sufficient Conditions

Nothing found out there in the world with syntheticity is known yet to be definable in necessary and jointly sufficient conditions.

Defining anything in necessary and jointly sufficient terms necessitates the notion that we will never fail to recognise cases nor erroneously ascribe cases.

However, so far, all known such attempts tested have turned out to either have cases where:

1) Terms turned out to be not necessary…

...there is eventually, sooner or later, always an object or event which we classify as an instance, following the rules, but which doesn’t have the proposed feature and this shows that the originally imagined condition(s) were not necessary.

2)The terms turned out to be not sufficient…

...there is eventually, sooner or later, always an object or event which does have the proposed feature but which we don’t classify as an instance and this would show that the original condition(s) were not sufficient.

This is where Wittgenstein’s family Resemblance Principle comes in. Take four member of a family, A, B, C and D. The first overlapping pair shares appearances to do with their eyes (A&B). The second overlapping pair share nose features (B&C). The third overlapping pair share chin features (C&D) and the last overlapping pair share ear features. But between A and C there are no resemblances as with A and D etc. So the conditions for a person to be a member of the family come from an open list – a list that is never complete. So we say that there are no “necessary” conditions but instead only an open list of "sufficient" conditions. This is the principle of “multiply realisability”. The same applies to games. Write down a list of all the games humans play. You will find no one thing that is common to all those games and only games (Humans don’t only play games and so this is not a uniquely defining feature of games). And yet we are still able to recognise when something is a game.

But then we find times when the features from the list are instantiated but still we would not like to consider the instance one that should fall under the definition. So, for example, a person might be an athlete in full athletic kit and sprinting down the track with others sprinting behind him in the same direction. We might say these are sufficient conditions for there to be a race on the go. But it could be that the people following are carrying guns and they wish to rob the athlete of his shoes. What has happened here is that there are now additional conditions in play that negate, or work against, the idea that this is a race.

We say, because this sort of negation can happen at any time, that the list of sufficient conditions is always defeasible. Like a legal contract – all the conditions in the contract could be met except that some other conditions outside of the contract have come about such that the Judge agrees the contract should now be annulled.

So when we define anything like a pen, a desk, or justice or a race or even "The Scientific Method" etc we have the notion of a definition being given in sufficient terms only (no necessary terms), the sufficient terms are taken from an open (limitless) list of terms, but even if there are sufficient terms occurring or obtaining at any one time there is always the possibility of the occurrence of coinciding negating conditions and this possibility means we must consider the collection of satisfactorily sufficient terms always still defeasible - always open to defeat by the coexistence of some other negating condition.

Since there are no known exceptions to the above observed principle it cannot be said of law, for instance, that it is black and white, because it could only be so if it was an arbitrary ontological construct divorcing itself from the way the world is actually found to go on observation. If something like the law wished to be black and white then it would in fact be no more related to and guiding of the real world out there than is a game of tennis.

Just curious, can you make your point with fewer words? I start to loose focus part way through.

12-27-2012, 01:14 PM

thermophysics

Quote:

Originally Posted by printer2

Just curious, can you make your point with fewer words? I start to loose focus part way through.

Could you give me an example of my point(s) made with fewer words?

12-27-2012, 01:22 PM

printer2

Quote:

Originally Posted by thermophysics

Could you give me an example of my point(s) made with fewer words?

If I could I would not be asking.

12-27-2012, 01:24 PM

thermophysics

You say you got so far before losing focus. How about the stuff you did manage to cover?

12-27-2012, 05:49 PM

printer2

Quote:

Originally Posted by thermophysics

You say you got so far before losing focus. How about the stuff you did manage to cover?

I think you lost me here.

Quote:

Nothing found out there in the world with syntheticity is known yet to be definable in necessary and jointly sufficient conditions.

12-28-2012, 05:32 AM

thermophysics

Quote:

Originally Posted by printer2

I think you lost me here.

Hmmm, but you said "...with fewer words". There are not a lot of words in that introduction where you say you were already lost. There is a big difference between losing focus and being lost. Losing focus on account of feeling overwhelmed by a volume of words is different from being lost at the very beginning.

I'm thinking what you mean is more words that help cash-out the concepts packed into few words. I would say that I had already done that back at this post...

Hmmm, but you said "...with fewer words". There are not a lot of words in that introduction where you say you were already lost. There is a big difference between losing focus and being lost. Losing focus on account of feeling overwhelmed by a volume of words is different from being lost at the very beginning.

I'm thinking what you mean is more words that help cash-out the concepts packed into few words. I would say that I had already done that back at this post...